Anxiety about cleaning

Unfuck Your Habitat

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So, you're moving. Fun! No, wait. The opposite of that. Moving sucks, but there are things you can do to make it suck maybe a little less.

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OH MY GOD THE PILES OF MAIL. …

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Wash out those slobbery food and water dishes, and wipe down the area where your pets get fed, including any cabinet or wall surfaces that may get accidental splatter mess.…

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(For Parents and Adult Children)

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Benefits and How to Get Motivated

When 29-year-old Mica Binkley of Memphis, Tennessee, spotted a TikTok video last March showing a young boy cooking in the family kitchen, she was struck not by the young chef’s skills but by the harsh comments posted by platform users who criticized the messy space behind him.

To Binkley, the scene resembled her own living space a few years earlier when she was depressed and lacked the motivation to clean or organize her belongings. Recognizing signs of depression, Binkley leaped into action via social media, offering to help clean and organize (for free!) the homes of local women struggling with depression. Binkley’s tweet earned likes and retweets galore, inspiring others to roll up their sleeves and follow her generous, compassionate example.¹

Experts say a disorganized and messy house can contribute to feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression. But what if you're not motivated to tidy up? Psycom talked to people who successfully use cleaning to reduce their anxiety, calm their worries, and work in a little exercise, too. Their approach, along with some researched-backed studies, just might convince you of the mental health benefits you may gain.

Research suggests that cleaning—or a lack of it—may be linked often linked to mental health. On the one hand, doing household chores can serve as a productive distraction—a way to take your mind off of pressing concerns—and at least temporarily help you stop worrying about problems you can’t control. On the other hand, unmade beds, a sink full of dirty dishes, even cluttered and disorganized countertops and cabinets, may simply suggest you’re super-busy. But they can also signal mental distress.

New Jersey mom Amy W. (*Names abbreviated to protect privacy) turned to good, old-fashioned ironing after being diagnosed with breast cancer on the heels of a few other health-related crises in her family.

"I ironed sheets, shirts, napkins, dresses, you name it,” says Amy who now considers starch her best friend. “The feeling of accomplishing something and having full control even for that moment was very satisfying. I’ve never ironed before. The rocking motion was somehow very soothing.”

Joanne M., a recently-retired communications professional, also picked up an iron when her life felt bleak. “I specifically remember the weekend before my father died. My brother was with him, so I used my time off [from caregiving] to do every last bit of ironing. I think this task, which was simple and completable, gave me a feeling of control over the situation, which was otherwise chaotic.”

Research conducted by Darbe Saxbe, PhD, showed that clutter has a profound effect on mood and self-esteem.²

In a study of 60 families, investigators found that women who viewed their homes as disorganized and messy had increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Those women also felt more depressed throughout the day and more tired at night, compared with women in the experiment who described their home environment as restful.

Research also suggests that clutter can wreck your concentration.

A 2011 study from the Princeton University Neuroscience Institute compared the impact of living in cluttered vs organized spaces and found that too many visual stimuli (think: shoes on the staircase, a sink full of dishes, wrinkled clothes in the dryer) makes it hard for the brain to focus and process information. That overload can be stressful for some people.

In their report, researchers put it this way, “Multiple stimuli present in the visual field at the same time compete for neural representation by mutually suppressing their evoked activity throughout visual cortex, providing a neural correlate for the limited processing capacity of the visual system.”

Translation: To be less on edge and more productive you may need to clear the clutter at home and at work.

Joanne explains the contentment she felt in the aftermath of preparing for the arrival of out-of-town guests. “There was a moment when all the tasks were finished: the house was immaculate, the laundry all done, food shopping and prep, also complete," she says. "It was then that I was able to stretch out on a lounge chair on my deck, relax for a moment and revel in the satisfaction that my hard-earned order, however temporary, was bringing me.”

Clutter can make it difficult to relax and may lead to feelings of guilt and embarrassment for some. Plus, if you can't find your phone or keys when you need them, clutter can be a major time-waster, too. If you are working from home these days like so many people in the aftermath of the COVID-19 lockdown, you may be feeling the effects of your cluttered surroundings even more. It might help to consider some of the other benefits of cleaning—apart from ridding your house of the dust bunnies (and other nasty allergens) under your bed.

"Move a muscle, change a thought," says Lauren, a mom who struggles with anxiety and depression. When Lauren feels overwhelmed she relies on movement to recharge her energy and reset her thinking. Her go-to's are handwashing pots, pans, and dishes, taking the dog for a long walk, and working outside in the garden. Gregory Scott Brown, MD, a psychiatrist, and wellness advocate based in Austin, Texas explains the physiological connection.

“Moving your body is a great stress reliever,” says Dr. Brown, “People who engage in more physical activity are at a reduced risk for developing depression, regardless of age or geographic region,” he says.

“When people hear exercise they think we’re talking about going to the gym or running marathons. But moving around your house while you’re cleaning or getting up to go to the mailbox, that’s good for your body as well,” he adds.

Washing dishes, mopping floors, and yes, ironing can be calming—especially when conducted in a mindful way.

A 2015 study conducted by student and faculty researchers at Florida State University found that mindful student dishwashers—those who focused on the smell of the soap, the warmth of the water, and the feel of the dishes—experienced a 27% decrease in nervousness and a 25% hike in mental inspiration, while the control group received no benefits.³

“I do think there are benefits like stress reduction and gaining a sense of control that cleaning up your space can offer,” says Dr. Brown. “Often, it's a sense of purpose, having something tangible that you can look at and say, this is something I’ve achieved today. That can be very rewarding for people who are struggling. Taking on a big, eight-hour project isn't necessary. There are small things you can do every single day.”

Josh B. is a young, married Navy pilot who alleviates stress by keeping his tiny, 700 square-foot Southern California apartment tidy. He prefers organizing to cleaning and likes his home to function like a “well-oiled machine.” Cleaning is important, he adds, but he doesn’t derive the same mental health boost from cleaning that he gets from having a well-thought-out and orderly space.

“Papers need to be in a neat stack,” he continues. “The bed must be made. Countertops should be clean, the shower curtain closed, and everything must have a place. I cringe at “junk drawers” and cannot stand dishes in the sink for longer than a day. I am at my most peaceful place when the dishwasher was just unloaded, with no dishes in the sink, the bed is made, and all items are put away.”

How to Start Cleaning When You Don't Want to

If you're overwhelmed, it's okay. It helps to remember that stress from clutter is something that can be alleviated. Here are a few simple changes you can make right now:

Make Your Bed
A study conducted by the National Sleep Foundation found that people who make their beds every morning are 19% more likely to say they regularly get a good night’s sleep. Clean sheets are also linked to better rest. Seventy-five percent of people report they are more comfortable when they sleep in bedding that has been washed recently.
Start Small
It's not necessary to devote an entire weekend to cleaning. That's no one's idea of a fun way to spend downtime. Set your sights on something easy, like a drawer or the coat closet. Commit to sorting it on a weeknight after dinner. Reward yourself with a piece of dark chocolate or by watching a show that makes you laugh.
Use A Timer to Get You Motivated
If you are easily distracted by tasks that bore or overwhelm you set a timer for 20 minutes and tackle a cleaning task. Load your dishwasher and scrub your sink. Clean two toilets or vacuum and dust your living room. Vow to work on a different task for the same amount of time (more or less depending on your motivation) the next day. This approach will slowly build a sense of accomplishment and pretty soon you'll be making dinner in a clean kitchen.
Declutter Your Workspace Before Quitting for The Day
Straighten out your paper piles and discard anything you're finished with before you shut down your computer for the night. Some people use lists to ease their anxiety. If you're nervous that you'll forget where you left off, making a list of where to get started in the morning might be helpful. Taking a few minutes to tidy your desk provides a sense of closure, not to mention the energy you'll feel in the morning when you start your workday in a more organized space.
Listen to A Podcast or Music You Love
You may as well make the job fun: clean while listening to some energizing tunes or an inspiring podcast can really help to make the task more enjoyable.

Cleaning and organizing—even in small doses—go a long way to helping us feel better about ourselves physically and mentally. That's the power of cleaning.

*Answers provided by Gregory Scott Brown, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist and author of the forthcoming book (May 2022), The Self Healing Mind: An Essential Five-Step Practice for Overcoming Anxiety and Depression, and Revitalizing You Life.

How does cleaning affect your mental health?

When you’re struggling with mental health, cleaning your house is often the last thing on your mind—especially if housework, for you, is just another annoying task on your to-do list. However, you may find you feel better once you start to clean, says Dr. Brown. When you’re struggling with mental health, cleaning your house is often the last thing on your mind—especially if housework, for you, is just another annoying task on your to-do list. However, you may find you feel better once you start to clean, says

Is cleaning linked to anxiety?

Thinking about cleaning can certainly provoke anxiety in some people, according to Dr. Brown, but once they get going, they find cleaning can be calming. In fact, it’s possible to turn cleaning into a meditative experience, he says. “Mindfulness is all about conscious awareness. Tuning out the stress of the outside world but bringing your conscious awareness to the task at hand and focusing on accomplishing that one thing in the moment may actually be advantageous for your mental health,” he adds.

What does clutter do to your brain?

Clutter is thought to produce an increase in the stress hormone cortisol. This doesn’t mean that clutter causes mental illness, but it certainly doesn’t help, says Dr. Brown. In fact, recent studies suggest that when you have a lot of “visual noise” going on around you, making decisions may be more difficult.⁵ According to Dr. Brown, cleaning your space may help reduce your cortisol levels, turn down the volume on the visual noise, and help you focus on the things you need to, and that could potentially improve your mood.

Can a dirty house cause depression?

“People are all different,” says Dr. Brown, “and I get it; some thrive in chaos. A dirty house won’t cause depression per se, but if you are normally tidy, a messy home may be a symptom of depression. I always recommend a comprehensive approach to treating mental illness, which includes professional therapy and medications when appropriate. However, evidence-based lifestyle interventions are also an important part of treatment. The way you live can totally affect the way you feel. This includes how you keep your environment.”

A woman offered free house-cleaning for people with depression, and the tweet went viral amid soaring mental illness rates Sandoval, Kelsie. Posted April 16, 2021. Available at https://www.insider.com/woman-went-viral-offering-house-cleaning-for-people-with-depression-2021-4. Accessed October 13, 2021.
Saxbe DE, Repetti R. No place like home: home tours correlate with daily patterns of mood and cortisol. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2010 Jan;36(1):71-81. doi: 10.1177/0146167209352864. Epub 2009 Nov 23. PMID: 19934011. Accessed October 13, 2021.
Hanley AW, Warner AR, Dehili VM et al. Washing Dishes to Wash the Dishes: Brief Instruction in an Informal Mindfulness Practice. Mindfulness 6, 1095–1103 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-014-0360-9. Accessed October 13, 2021.
McMains S, Kastner S. Interactions of top-down and bottom-up mechanisms in human visual cortex. J Neurosci. 2011 Jan 12;31(2):587-97. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3766-10.2011. PMID: 21228167; PMCID: PMC3072218.
Svetlana Ognjanovic, Manfred Thüring, Ryan O. Murphy, Christoph Hölscher, Display clutter and its effects on visual attention distribution and financial risk judgment, Applied Ergonomics,Volume 80,2019,Pages 168-174,ISSN 0003-6870, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apergo.2019.05.008.

Notes: This article was originally published October 28, 2021 and most recently updated November 2, 2021.

Nancy Josephson Liff

Nancy Josephson Liff writes about child development, parenting, early childhood education, health, medicine, family dynamics, women’s topics. social issues, and social trends. Her articles have appeared in American Health, Family Circle, Woman’s Day, Glamour, YM, Seventeen, Self, What to Expect.com, Mom.me, and Highlights.com, and more.

What kind of neuroses does the craving for cleaning speak of — INMYROOM

There is nothing wrong with blowing off dust particles and putting everything in order in love. In the absence of a desire to clean up - too. Both are absolutely normal for a balanced person. So why do some people need neatness that turns into sterility?

Risk group

Perfectionists

Thirst for order and perfectionism go hand in hand — excellent organizers and effective performers bring any business not just to a point, but to an exclamation point. nine0003

An extreme degree of perfectionism speaks of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

People of strict rules

Neat people often adhere to strict social norms: accuracy in their minds is inextricably linked with integrity.

For all their apparent decency, neat people are not distinguished by increased empathy, and their level of kindness is no higher than that of those who carelessly scatter things around the apartment. But the obsession with order accumulates internal discomfort: a person becomes a slave to habits and rituals. nine0003

Rationalists and systematizers

Those who like to drive themselves and others into rigid limits: do not spoil, do not break or break anything. Blocking spontaneity with the same care that they lock cupboards or arrange stamps in albums, these people are driving themselves into traps - there is no place left for creativity and personal life in their world.

In addition, it takes sluts no more time to find the necessary trifles than it takes pedants to maintain order.

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How to understand that you have a cleanliness mania (and where is the norm)?

The line beyond which the desire to clean up turns into a mania for cleanliness is easy to determine: instead of pleasure from pleasant things or surroundings, anxiety and anxiety appear.

Signs of anxiety

You start cleaning here and there several times a day. All is not lost if you catch yourself doing this on your own, and not after comments from outside. nine0064
Wash your hands after almost everything, too often and too thoroughly.
You feel a growing desire to put things in order outside the house, and in someone else's home you look around suspiciously.
You clean at an inconvenient time, put in a lot of effort, and experience exaggerated emotions: for example, frantically grasping at washing dishes three minutes before guests arrive.
You do not control the time allotted for cleaning and delay the process in every possible way.

Quirks or injuries?

Psychologists say that there is always a serious cause for alarm behind external manifestations. But even at an appointment with a specialist, someone who asks for help will not immediately face the true threat - so the heroes of the Harry Potter books do not dare to call Voldemort by name.

Let's make a list of enemies who hide behind various phobias.

Clutterophobia: strong fear of disorder

By putting things in order, people seem to be trying to collect life from the rubble, to regain control over it. Often this happens to those who grew up in a not very prosperous environment. nine0003

Growing up and growing up, they tirelessly struggle with the non-existent dirt in their homes instead of getting rid of the garbage that fills their minds with the help of a psychologist.

Macbeth or Pilate Syndrome

Deception, betrayal, painful criticism or humiliation lead to a burning desire to remove imaginary pollution. Aggressive feelings arising from the inability to express emotions also lead to exhausting cleaning.

Such people, for example, at the moment of a quarrel, begin to carefully clean things up or reproach their families for the ideal order. This seems to relieve stress, but actually demonstrates a desire to gain control over the situation. nine0003

Germophobia: fear of infection through touch

Germophobes are usually closed, they won’t shake hands once again and won’t smack on the cheek. It is they who ride the subway in masks, avoid contact with pets, and eventually try not to leave the house at all, have a hard time with the arrival of guests and roll up after them a grandiose cleaning.

It is very difficult to convince such people that their fears are unfounded - touching a dirty surface, a railing in a subway or someone else's doorknob, they experience a panic attack: spasms, shortness of breath, dizziness and tremors. nine0003

Does cleaning solve psychological problems?

Habitual activities provide temporary emotional relief through exercise. But they also make it impossible to adequately assess the situation and understand the reasons for the permanent struggle for purity.

If you are lonely, a perfectly cleaned room can only aggravate stress: there is order, but there is no one to disturb it, and then what is all this for? And if family members are nearby, they may start to worry about you - after all, during constant cleaning, normal communication is hardly possible. nine0003

The desire for cleanliness should be taken as a signal: when you are able to treat life like a game, and accept yourself and others with all the advantages and disadvantages, the risk of mental problems will be minimal.

Always cleaning your house: How to stop constantly cleaning up

Admit it, have you ever caught yourself thinking that everything you do at home is constant cleaning? Either you need to arrange a general cleaning, then wipe it off, then throw something away, then it's time to disassemble the shelf, then the closet. And while you were doing all this, an unsightly layer of dust and grease had again built up on the kitchen hood. How to stop the endless running in circles around the rag and mop? Psychologists have an answer. nine0003

Molly Brandenburg

Who is this for?
The first question to ask yourself in such a situation is: for whom are you trying to get closer to ideal cleanliness and order? Your answers may be as follows.

For yourself: you don't like it when the house is a mess.
For my husband: he doesn't like it when the house is in a mess, and he often talks about it.
For children: they should see an example of how to really run a household. nine0064
For strangers, such as guests, what might they think of you if they happen to see a pile of unironed linen or cat hair on the couch?
You don't know for whom, you just can't stop, it's like an obsession.

Redbud Construction Services

Family and order:
Consider whether perfectionism is manifesting in your attempts to clean up. Perfectionism has the power to make you strive for something that is impossible to achieve. Maybe you have some beliefs, like: "A good housewife will never allow even a minimum of dust on the shelf"? The reverse side of this belief means that if you have at least some dust somewhere, you are a bad housewife. For some, such a prospect can really seem terrible and intolerable, and therefore they choose rags and a mop on the weekend, instead of relaxing and relaxing with their family. nine0003

Molly Brandenburg

To stop worrying about this, think about what a scale from the worst hostesses on Earth to the best could look like. There are no only black and white criteria, it is really a scale. Where would you place yourself on this scale? your mother? mother-in-law? sister? girlfriend? Think about the specific people you could place on this scale: which of them are significantly worse than you and significantly better, if you consider them according to the criterion of "hostess". nine0003

Think about what is included in the concept of "hostess". Is it just a pursuit of dust and dirt, or is there something else, no less important, to be called a good housewife? Do you think that your children will appreciate (and remember) more: how did you read books to them on Sundays or how did you vacuum all day on Sundays?

LEICHT New York

Speaking of relatives
Sometimes it happens that relatives express dissatisfaction with our carelessness. All relatives sin with this: husbands, wives, and mothers-in-law with mothers-in-law and parents. In some cases, their claims are justified. But sometimes, and this is where I want to emphasize, underneath these remarks about cleanliness and order lies something else: dissatisfaction with you in general, a desire to establish control, attempts at manipulation, problems in relationships. In such situations, of course, you should not take reproaches for insufficient cleanliness in the house at face value. Perhaps this is a signal that it is time to identify and heal the sore spots in your relationship. nine0003

Tip: Set up a cleaning schedule that works for you, such as a little bit every day and three hours once a month. Or get out strictly in zones. In a word, there are a lot of options, the main thing is that your schedule should not be called “after rain on Thursday”.

Kelley Motschenbacher

Cleaning as an obsession
If we are talking about some kind of psychological difficulties, then it also happens. Cleaning becomes exhausting and does not lead to a sense of completion. You may feel that you must do something immediately to ease your discomfort. In most cases, we are talking about anxiety or other rather intense unpleasant emotions that a person tries to drown out by being distracted by intense activity. Sometimes a person is prone to over-tidying if he is overwhelmed by frightening thoughts about the surrounding germs, possible pollution and disease. Such situations require professional help, of course. nine0003

Route Design : Ashley Winn

You have guests: what to do if you haven't cleaned for five days
You know, this may be news to you, but people don't judge you as picky as you think. And not only about the cleanliness in your house, but also about any other aspect of your life: people in general tend to think much more about themselves than about you.

Of course, if you have so much cat or dog hair that it ends up in the dishes you serve to your guests, or causes them immediate attacks of severe allergies, then of course, this is an occasion to reconsider the schedule, criteria or methods of cleaning. nine0003

When guests come to you, they do it for you and for the sake of communicating with you. At this point, you are not in the competition for the cleanest apartment of the year. Therefore, focus on connecting with your friends - this will give you more pleasure than panicking at the last minute to stuff everything that is badly lying in the closet.

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